Jason Sudeikis, second from left, is shown in a scene from “Hall Pass.” (Photo credit: New Line Cinema)
Sticking to their guns, Farrelly Brothers revel in disgusting antics
UPDATED – What happened to intelligent comedy? Why is it that it only becomes funny when it involves some juvenile prank, gratuitous crotch shots or bodily function gone disgustingly awry? Is it no longer fashionable to actually develop a joke? If the Farrelly Brothers’ latest release, “Hall Pass,” is any indication of the future of the comedy genre, long gone are the days of actually witty humor, replaced instead by coma-inducing stupidity and enough gag jokes to kill the staff of “Family Guy.”
The clichéd “Hall Pass” starts off with the two male leads, Rick (Owen Wilson, “Marley and Me”) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis, “Saturday Night Live”), ogling the local women at a party. Sadly, the rest of the movie pass in a similarly chauvinistic manner. After a less-than-flattering exposure on hidden camera, the men’s wives, Maggie (Jenna Fischer, “The Office”) and Grace (Christina Applegate, “Going the Distance”) decide to offer their husbands a hall pass from marriage. (This brilliant idea materialized into existence thanks to Joy Behar’s character, some nameless relationship-guru wannabe.) The thinking was that if the boys got this hormone-driven energy out of their systems, they would appreciate what they had at home. So, in an experiment reeking of failure only equaled by that of “Twilight,” the audience endures nearly two hours of some of the most low brow idiocy in recent history, all in the name of sex (of which there is surprisingly little going on). A quick checklist: bowel movement jokes, unneeded nudity (both male and female), cheating (both imagined and real), weird sex sounds, the motley crew of sidekicks who add little value, ludicrous topics including fake foreplay nicknames and so much more. Oh, and let’s not forget the boyfriend-who-was-never-actually-a-boyfriend going all Charlie Sheen-like and crazying up the joint. It’s a veritable bevy of moronic situations bested only by how clueless the main characters are in their quest to score. The one thing to take away: Applebee’s is probably not the best place to pick up horny women, but you’re more than welcome to try.
But no worries: It’s not just the plot that scrapes against the bottom of the barrel. Whether it was the script or an innate lack of chemistry, Wilson and Sudeikis appear to have to brutally battle to make their characters sync up. At no point do you feel they are actually friends. Instead, we get some painful excuse for acting, cringe-worthy in all the wrong ways. However, the wives did a bit better, making you want to know more about them. But sans some quick cutaways to them at the beach house getting drunk with college-aged baseball players, they are lost in the simply underwhelming storyline (and that’s saying something). And everyone else just fades into the background, never to be remembered again. But Bo Burnham got a small part as a bartender, so it’s not all doom and gloom.
Strangely, the concept of freeing husbands to travel on their own meandering whims in order to come some enlightening epiphany just doesn’t hold water. And the Farrelly Brothers, returning to their infantile base, have done a great disservice to the name of comedy.
What else is there to say? “Hall Pass” panders to the lowest common denominator. Why waste your time watching this dreck when you can watch real talent being recognized at the Oscars tonight? There’s a pretty good chance no one will defecate on a shower wall there.
One inane star out of five.
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